The Marcus Foundation has awarded a three-year, $2.8 million grant to support After-School All-Stars Atlanta, enabling the program to continue its work and establish four-week summer academies at three of its after-school sites – BEST Academy Middle School, Coretta Scott King Middle School and Harper Archer Middle School.

“For us, this is huge,” said Walt Thompson, associate dean for graduate studies and research at the Georgia State University College of Education and After-School All-Stars Atlanta executive director. “It’s important for middle schoolers to have consistency, and this grant will allow us to continue offering our program at these schools.”

In addition, After-School All-Stars Atlanta will continue collecting data on its students’ academic performance and, as part of the grant agreement, report those numbers to the Marcus Foundation at certain intervals during the three-year period.

“We’ve found that our students do significantly better on standardized tests, have better grade-point averages and miss fewer days of school than students who don’t participate in after-school programs,” Thompson said.

After-School All-Stars Atlanta, run through Georgia State’s College of Education, has 21 independent after-school sites, 11 of which are in urban middle schools. The remaining programs are in nine of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s Centers of Hope and at the City of Refuge, which offers transitional housing for homeless women with children.